A Confederacy of Dunces is amazing. It’s in my top 5. Not in the same vein but I read Flowers for Algernon for the first time as an adult and it really touched my soul.
Ask HN: What are some must read books?
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Re: Ask HN: What are some must read books?
#62A lot of "must reads" depend on your background and interest. GEB for example I would classify as a must for anyone with a computer science background, The Glory of their Times for any baseball fan, Democracy in America for anyone into American politics.
I have a solid CS background and tried once to read GEB and while very enthralling I could only get about a quarter through. I will have to try that one again. Cheers.
Re: Ask HN: What are some must read books?
#63People take issue with them, but picking something off Adler's or Harvard's (five-foot-shelf) or Bloom's Great Books lists will almost never lead you wrong. But, here we go anyway (and yeah, some of these are just off those lists): 1) Shakespeare's big four tragedies are, in fact, out-fucking-standing. Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth. IMO Hamlet reads the best of those. Any would be fine to watch, as well, and ma…
I've never read Shakespeare but so I'm curious to hear what you think makes it outstanding? I've tried reading a bit before but I was weighed down by words and phrases that we no longer use and found myself losing the meaning.
The language takes some getting used to. Watching a performance is easier than reading it, since (again) you have the context of the actor's physical performance, delivery, the setting of the scene, et c., to inform your understanding. Another thing is that often his plays rely on some historical understanding for full effect. For example, most people reading the beginning of Hamlet might not fully grasp what's going on, while someone with a good understanding of feudal politics (or anyone who's played much Crusader Kings) will be going "oh shit, this is really bad". This is where something like Asimov's guide to Shakespeare, or any number of free online lectures about the plays, can be helpful.
As for what's great:
1) Masterful plotting, leaving just enough up to the audience to figure out (and, more often than not, leveraging that for ironic purposes).
2) Outstanding characterization.
3) A hard-to-pin-down quality that makes relating episodes, characters, and exchanges in his plays to real life the most natural thing in the world. There's a reason we've ended up with so many of his characters and phrases as parts of the English language itself.
Re: Ask HN: What are some must read books?
#64How to win friends and influence people. Its the book I wish I read in high school and college. I genuinely believe the world would be a better place if everyone were to read that book.
Funny, I am currently listening to this book on Audible. A lot of people think that it's a book about manipulation but it's really not. It's a book about leadership through reciprocity. If you want people invest in your goals you have to contribute to theirs. Win Your Case by Gerry Spence is also a favorite of mine of the same vein but applied to confrontational situations, but the advice are based on the same founda…
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Re: Ask HN: What are some must read books?
#65Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran.
Blew my mind (pun intended) and changed my perspective on pretty much everything forever.
Re: Ask HN: What are some must read books?
#66People take issue with them, but picking something off Adler's or Harvard's (five-foot-shelf) or Bloom's Great Books lists will almost never lead you wrong. But, here we go anyway (and yeah, some of these are just off those lists): 1) Shakespeare's big four tragedies are, in fact, out-fucking-standing. Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth. IMO Hamlet reads the best of those. Any would be fine to watch, as well, and ma…
Yes, The Odyssey is great (even if Telemachus is an entitled twit). The Iliad is great if very straightforward. The Aeneid is great, well the first half is, but like Romeo and Juliet after Mercutio dies, The Aeneid flags after Dido does the thing that she does.
Re: Ask HN: What are some must read books?
#67Some recs:
Fiction
- Dracula
Non-fiction
- Moonwalking with Einstein
- Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things
Re: Ask HN: What are some must read books?
#68A Mix:
— Founders at Work, Jessica Livingston
— Principles, Ray Dalio
— Calling Bullsh*t (The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World), Carl Bergstrom
— Masters of Doom, David Kushner
— Anything you want, Derek Sivers
— Advertising Secrets of the Written Word, Joseph Sugarman
— Ogilvy on Advertising
— The Art of looking sideways, Alan Fletcher
— The Messy Middle, Scott Belsky
— The Wart of Art, Steven Pressfield
— The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing, Mel Lindauer
— The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
— Ikigai, Francesc Miralles
— The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman
— Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living
Re: Ask HN: What are some must read books?
#69Pfffff you really asked the impossible question here. Best I can do is scan through the books on the shelves next to me: * Beyond good and evil: Nietzsche * The Temple of the Golden Pavilion: Yukio Mishima * Steppenwolf: Hermann Hese * Library of babel: Borges * The Brain: David Eagleman * The Magical Mountain: Thomas Mann * The Dark Tower: Stephen King(actually tons of King books - I am a bit of a fanboy) * Factfuln…
The dark tower series is one of his best IMO. Unfortunate he ended the series earlier than planned... Was supposed to be quite a few books longer but I remember reading (and I could be remembering wrong) in the foreward to one of his books that the weight of people sending him letters such as "I'm terminally ill, i was hoping you could tell me how it ends before I pass" and all the other contact he got led him to cut…
The intro to the first book was kind of sad, with mails from sick people and people sentenced to death asking King how it ends and he was unable to respond because he wasn't sure where he wanted to go.
Re: Ask HN: What are some must read books?
#70Altered Carbon - Richard K Morgan
The Blade Itself - Joe Abercrombie
A Walk Among the Tombstones - Lawrence Block
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
Use of Weapons - Iain M Banks
Blood Song - Anthony Ryan
Red Rising - Pierce Brown
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
The Short Timers - Gustav Hasford